Gardens of the Dead
by Fabius Maximus
Summary: Today's Hero Meets the Past.
1. Chapter 1

Endings:

All characters depicted herein are owned by their respective copyright and trademark holders.

* * *

Jalan walked down the lonely street. The city had been known as Middleton, then Midland, then just "Mid." That had been when it was dying. The invention of the gateways had made travelling to other worlds as easy as going next door. Mankind hadn't been the first, and when the gateways had been invented, suddenly not just the Galaxy, but the entire Local Group had become accessible.

And now...two thousand years later, the city was abandoned. Like so much of earth. The great cities still existed, at least their old and historically important parts, kept up for historians and tourists from a million worlds, but the rest of earth was returning to the state it had known in the eons before mankind had risen. It was ironic, in a way. The Coliseum still existed, having long outlived some of the greatest structures of the 20th century.

But here? Just the street. The ancient homes were long since gone, save for the occasional bit of remains penetrating the earth. Even the street, made 500 years go by a fusion flame transmuting the ground to nearly imperishable ceramic was decaying, cracks running through it, with plants and even a small tree growing in the middle. Jalan kept walking. He was used to long walks- it was one of the things that marked him as odd, preferring to walk, cut out of the stellerweb, just himself and his thoughts. He ran a hand through his cropped blonde hair. The sun was a bit warm today, and he could hear the insects, animals and birds going about their business, no doubt quite untroubled by mankind's brief dominance of his homeworld.

_No place for heroes here anymore,_ the 17 year old thought. His parents were moving, and he was moving with them. His friend Denise would be going with them, and she was excited. A quick walk through the gateway to the major local Crossings and then to Andromeda where there were frontier worlds along the Argo Spur. Denise had pointed out that there would be a lot of work for freelancers like them saving people- the Spur, to say nothing of Varna and its Starwolves could make for challenging times.

She'd said that with her eyes shining, the quicksilver form of her body nearly quivering. Denise could do "exciting" as well as any 4 year old seeing her first Sapherian dragon.

_So why aren't I?_ They'd stopped the last great earth villain. Dalan, with his picotech fueled plan to drain the sun of its energy was safely incarcerated in the Stormcage. There was nothing else on earth, just old people and young people who would soon enough leave to the stars.

_And be forgotten._

Jalan nodded at that last thought. That was why he was here.

He paused at the entrance, the gates hanging ajar. The solar powered street light, still there after centuries continued to let no longer existing cars in. Jalan wondered if it would ever break down...maybe one day it would be the last thing left her to show that man had walked these hills. He patted the warm metal of the light, before turning and walking through the gates to his destination.

Into the cemetery.

The old humans had interred their dead, before the practice of giving them back to starfire had become established across the worlds of man. And here was a great cemetery, full of the wealthy and respected and famous...all now forgotten. He'd been here before when this mood had come over him and now he walked surely across the broken and overgrown terrain, passing the newer graves, only five hundred or so years old, the last to be left to nature as the "eternal" cleaning remotes gave out. There was a flicker to his right and he looked, to see a confused looking woman appear, the holo emitters set into the grave marker still functioning.

"Are you here to hear about my life!" She said happily, long blond hair swaying in the simulated breeze.

"No."

"Oh," 'she' said, looking disappointed. "My life was very important. My parents knew it first, then my school mates and of course once I became-" she paused. Jalan knew what was coming.

"What's your name. What did you do?" he asked.

"I...pardon me. There is memory damage. Those facts are no longer known. " There was a pause, and far more mechanically, the figure continued. "Please contact your official Neverforgotten repair representative for further inf-inf-inf-inf-" Moments later, the holo faded, dissolving into a thousand rainbow colors. The same thing it had done every time he'd passed by.

He continued walking, and a few other holograms flickered, but he ignored them. Too degraded even to talk, they presented people in various positions. Here a dignified old grandmother looked out blindly, there a man held some sort of trophy, his words of triumph, his very name, forever lost to time.

After that came the cold tombs, where the rich and vain had had themselves cryogenically preserved, in the hopes of new life. Another vanity—the act of freezing destroyed the very minds they'd hoped to save and so the dead remained here, the black solar films on their tombs keeping them in a slightly more preserved state of death.

Now Jalan was walking up a slope to the top of the old cemetery, where two thousand year old graves were jumbled and pressed in on each other.

And finally, here it was. The figure must have once been glorious, the best, most resistant marble, still coated in some areas with the diamond film that protected it from the elements.

Gone now. The face was eroded smooth, both arms gone, pitted by rain and wind, giving no hint as to what it had looked like in the beginning. The crypt behind it was completely gone, only fragments of marble left. A tree, old, lightning struck, but still living, grew through where the center of the crypt would have been. Sometimes Jalan wondered what was so compelling about it, but he'd never forgotten the place. He'd been here once, on one of his long walks, and since then had returned many times.

But this would be the last.

He looked down and nodded at the nearly effaced name:

K O SIBLE

"Well" he said, looking around at the timeworn graveyard. "I guess it's time to say goodbye." He felt the crushing depression come over him once again, redoubled in strength. Trying to ignore it, he opened up his lunch box. "One last meal before I go," he said, and sat down to eat in the garden of the dead.

He laughed, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice and failing. "Besides, you probably don't care. Your family loved you, I bet you were famous and here we are, not even knowing your name." He expected silence.

He didn't expect what happened next.

"The name?" The cheerful voice echoed through the ancient trees. "Is that important?"


	2. Chapter 2

this is a short story and will have short parts, just to warn you. This is for many reasons, many deep and important reasons that would break a mortal mind to hear...or its because this is all I can get to.

* * *

Jalan started at that. Not even Denise had come with him, at least not up to this place. But the source of the voice was there, perched on an old tree limb. Green eyes looked at him in amusement framed by a pretty face and mane of fiery red hair.

When Jalan met those eyes, he was almost knocked down by the personality behind them. There was a sense of power and youth and age all mixed together, combined with something else that he couldn't quite put his finger on. But even so...

"Are you human?" he finally asked.

"What makes you think I'm not?"

"It's... you're... are you an Incarnated Mind?" he asked. The Minds weren't common visitors to earth, or for that matter most places humans lived, but if there was a Mind here...

"No," she said and Jalan relaxed. The Minds did not lie, after all. "I'm just a visitor, and I heard your comments." Her full lips curved in a smile. "So, again...is that important?"

"What?" Jalan asked.

"Not knowing her name—or any of the names here." She said, and leaped to the ground with a grace that spoke of years of conditioning.

"I...yes!"

"Because they'll be offended if you don't remember?" An out thrust hand took in the graveyard. "There aren't any AI's here, and mankind can't use that route for immortality..."

Jalan nodded. Uploading a mind had been a fond dream of ancient man...and it was still a dream, though not so fond...not after the Steel Interregnum.

"Well no, they don't mind, I mean, there's nothing there _too_ mind." He shut up. How was it that someone he had just met was making him as flustered as Denise could on her best day.

"Thinking of your girlfriend?" The stranger said, green eye sparkling with amusement.

"She's not my-"

"-girlfriend?" A giggle. "Wow, the more things change..." Another leap and she was standing next to him.

_She didn't seem that short back there._ Jalan thought. But she barely came up to his shoulder, though her body was toned and lithe.

"So if nothing is here to mind, what's the problem?"

"This. It's..._futile_." Jalan finally got out. "we're leaving because there's nothing here, no need for heroics or heroes..."

"Give the poor world its due. It's had more than its share of demons and heroes and worlds get old, just like people. Maybe earth's earned a long retirement, just dozing in the sun and letting the universe go by." The woman wasn't laughing now. Jalan could feel a seriousness in her voice.

"And the people here?"

"The ones who don't like it will leave, the ones that do like it—well what's wrong with simply pausing and enjoying the flowers?" The woman paused, and looked at the remains of the statue, her hands on her hips. "I cannot believe they let someone put...ah well, after all our times."

"But why-"

"And in any case, it's not so much the world, now is it? You're wondering about something else."

Jalan was stung by her comment. _Barely met me and now she's claiming she knows what I'm wondering about..._

"Okay, what am I wondering about?"

"If it matters." She looked at him and Jalan tried to meet her eyes but found himself once again breaking contact, looking away. "...if anything you do matters, or will matter. Or if you'll end up like this one day, forgotten, left behind, footprints on a beach with the seas coming in."

"What do you think?" Jalan finally said.

"I think..." Suddenly she took one leap and went off running, "that if you're going to get an answer out of me, first you have to catch me!"

"Wah-hold on!" Jalan took off after her. _Oh you're not getting away that easily. I have some questions for you._

_TBC. _


	3. Chapter 3

Normally, Jalan wouldn't worry about catching someone, especially a normal human. There were things you couldn't catch and you had to use your brain with those. Valerians came to mind on that last. Jalan still had twitches about the time he let his pride get the better of him and challenged someone who grew up in 3g's to a wrestling match.

But this woman? She didn't move like someone who had grown up in a different gravity field, didn't seem to have been heavily enhanced...and so Jalan figured he'd catch her easily—like he could catch just about anyone else he put his mind to catching.

He was quickly disabused of his notion as she darted ahead of him, feet barely touching the ground.

She dove through gaps in the shrubbery that tore at him as he followed, leaped across jumbled ruins and headstones, and seemed to be just ahead of him.

"I'm going to get..." Jalan muttered to himself.

"Can't catch me, mister!"

He blinked at that, then blinked again. The woman had vanished behind a tumbled crypt but now a girl in pigtails had emerged. She couldn't be older than four or five. With a giggle, she moved behind a tree. Jalan didn't stop, but he was puzzled. There was _no way_ the other woman could have vanished, it was almost as if...

_As if she turned into a child? Don't let Denise know. She'll want to take you to the doctor to see why you were hallucinating._ Jalan shuddered at that. Denise had a certain worry about as she put it, "you fragile carbon based types."

No matter, he'd have her in a moment and get some answers...

And then the four year old vanished behind a headstone and a girl who looked to be about 12 appeared, some sort of metal construct on her teeth, gleaming in the sun as she gave him a broad grin.

"Wow, you're slow!" she said and darted off, Jalan in hot pursuit.

_Holocloak? Impossible, she's moving with the inertia of a person her size. One of Denise's people? No, they can change shape but not mass. You've been out in the hot sun too long. Maybe._

Now he was chasing the girl he'd first seen, but wearing some sort of odd dress/top combo with a slogan of some sort on it. A bit like the Warrior Ladies, but if so, Jalan hoped it came without the mandatory cannibalistic feast at the end. That hadn't been one of his and Denise's more entertaining jobs.

_I can't catch her...Wait, do I have to?_ Jalan cut right, moving away from his quarry. There was only one way out of the cemetery after all. The rest of the old entryways dead-ended into deep ravines or impassibly overgrown areas. The rest of the ground around the cemetery was clear. If she tried to move away on it, he could see her and there was no way to escape on the nearly flat ground of the long-dead city.

Moving as fast as he ever had, Jalan made it to the gate, puffing as if his lungs were about to explode. The gate was still open, the endlessly repeating light doing its thing and he could watch from here.

"Now let's see if you can get past me..." He muttered.

"Hi!"

"GIAAAYYYAHHHH!" Had there been a ceiling Jalan would have gone through it.

"Sorry," the woman said, her voice lighter. Jalan blinked at that. She looked younger now, wearing a midriff exposing shirt and some sort of odd pants with a number of pockets in them. The girl moved like she was used to them...and her eyes had the same unnerving combination of strength and amusement in them.

No. Jalan thought. _Joy._ Some secret joy that might set the whole world on fire if it was let out...and it might very well be worth it.

"That was fun," she continued. "Good thought about cutting me off. That's hard to do in the middle of a chase."

"You've got experience?"

"I had," she said.

"Oh."

"Was it fun?"

"What?"

"Was this fun? The chase?" She paused and her smile grew, showing even white teeth. "Trying to figure out how you can catch your quarry, pushing yourself to the limit, and then pushing yourself _beyond..."_

Now that Jalan's blood pressure and pulse were returning to normal, he nodded.

"Yah. "

"Good." Then she gave a theatrical sigh. "Too bad it doesn't make any difference, doesn't it."

"What?"

"I mean, it'll _all_ be forgotten—probably in less than a year, you'll have other stuff to do, and so it really doesn't matter..."

"I..."

"After all, that's what you were thinking, wasn't it?"

"I thought you were going to give me an answer," Jalan said, frowning.

"I _am_ answering you. Or at least giving you the first part." the woman replied, the smile gone. "Walk with me. It's been a while since I've been to town."

"Yeah right. Nobody's lived here for centuries."

"It's been a _very long_ while since I've been back to town." With that, she turned and left the gates, heading back to where the town had once been. With a sigh, Jalan followed her.

**TBC**

PS: Yes, there are some Easter eggs here from famous sci-fi of the past. See if you can spot 'em. I'm not calling them out specifically to avoid ruining the joke, but no challenge is intended to their creators.


	4. Chapter 4

The woman was a fast walker, bouncing with barely suppressed energy. Jalan couldn't help but think of the similarity between her walk and Denise's. He wondered if she would have the same answer for her energy that Denise gave.

"That I might miss something?" she said. "Well it's a bit late for that...but long ago, yeah."

Jalan blinked. Telepaths weren't unknown but...

"I'm not a telepath, if that's what you're wondering...I just have some experience with reading people."

Jalan let that pass. "How long ago?" he asked.

"Very," the woman said.

Jalan opened his mount, but she overrode him with a cheerful ruthlessness.

"But we're not here to talk about me, but you. " she said. "You spent way too much time in the graveyard, and now...well, it bothers you, that you'll be forgotten."

"No. I mean, not _me. _Something else," Jalan said, relieved in part that she didn't know everything.

"No?" she asked. "Well, that's good. You may be wrong, but you're not a fool." She gestured over to a low grassy ridge. "Let's sit here a moment."

"I wonder what was under here." Jalan asked.

"What?"

"The ridge, it isn't natural," he replied, "So there's probably a building, or the remains of one, under here."

"Remains of several, actually. If you're worried about a cave in..."

"Nah, just curious..."

"Well, I can't tell you what the most recent ruins were, but in the bottom layer..." Suddenly she opened her eyes in mock excitement and Jalan was once again struck by the power behind those green orbs. "...there is buried treasure."

"Stabilized plasma matrices? Ancient gold?" Jalan asked. "If you remember the old city then you must also remember when gold was worth something.'

"Yes, but according to some, worth more than gold—diablo sauce."

"What?" Jalan blinked.

"It's an acquired taste, but once there was a structure under there called Bueno Nacho... people all over the continent knew about the chain and ate there."

"I've never heard of it."

"I doubt you would have...not unless you were a very dedicated historian. Contrary to what some said..." Jalan noticed her eyes soften with memory, "it wasn't exactly a high point in mankind's culinary development." She found a low, sun-warmed stone and sat down on it, companionably gesturing to Jalan. He found his own place and sat next to her.

Surprisingly, she didn't say anything for a time. Jalan felt the urge to talk, but respected her silence.

_Silence is too often ignored,_ his trainer had said, _resist the temptation to fill every second with noise and words, even if they aren't needed. _

"I'm happy you don't care about your memory," she said. "Most people who are worried about that end up dying hating and terror struck. Or, if they're rulers, they end up causing such pain and sorrow that they're very memories become a curse...and then they're forgotten anyway." She paused and looked down at the soil, a single bee buzzing by, quite untroubled by the two intruders. "I think that's often what drove their cruelty—a realization that they were going to be forgotten, that all the trumpets and shouting flunkies and terrified servants would vanish, that the same fate awaited them as awaited the lowest servant...and it terrified them. So desperate for immortality that they wasted all their gifts..."

"I..." Jalan frowned, "I mean, I'm not happy that I'll die, who is. But even if it's only 250 earth years, if I use it...that's not what I'm worried about. Besides, Denise will be here forever."

"No she won't," the woman said. "Don't put that burden on her. The oldest Mind is just over a billion years—old, very old, but compared to the universe?" She shrugged, "In any case, you're ignoring facts—and you're too smart for that. What will happen to Denise?"

"I," Jalan started, and then fell silent." You know."

"Pretend I don't."

"When she hits a certain age... her memories and experience will become too much for her neural nets. She'll have to join with a Mind. But she won't die."

"Technically true, but you won't talk with her, will you?"

_If you know the answer..._

"No," Jalan finally said. "The youngest Mind is a million years old and has over a trillion formerly independent components. Denise's personality and knowledge would be spread through it. She..."

"Her individual self would effectively cease to exist. Put a drop of beer in the ocean and it may not be gone—not technically, but you'll never know it. The day Denise walks in and Merges, if you are still alive, will be the last day you speak to your friend."

Jalan fell silent at that. It was stupid—Denise might outlive _him_, but the friend—he remembered when they'd first met, her that blob of quicksilver that had been found by the spaceport, him a toddler. He'd actually mistook her for a toy at first, something she _never_ let him forget.

_And she'll die—not physically, but what makes her Denise will vanish into the Mind._ The woman was right. The Minds were vast beyond knowing and a single component, no matter how brilliant, was no more to them than a single neuron was to a human.

"Was that necessary?" Jalan finally asked.

"For this? Yes. Jalan, you know, and I don't have enough time to dance around the bush. You'll die, Denise will change and then die, history will forget all of this. Give it enough time, even the Minds will cease—whether the universe ends in the cold and dark or is reborn in fire, I doubt any records will be left. You have one birthright—and that is the certainty that whatever you do, whenever you do it, your loves, your dreams, your great rivalries and battles...They'll be forgotten. Utterly, beyond any concept you have. In this material world, they'll be forgotten.

"So what's the point!" Jalan burst out. "If we're forgotten, so are all the people we helped!"

"Ah. Now it comes out," her lips curved into that now infuriating smile with it's odd tranquility. "Your fear isn't about yourself. It's the question of whether or not what you have done will matter and be remembered."

"And?"

"In one way? No. That child you saved a month ago may grow up and be a wonderful mother. Her children will love her and they will mourn her. Then, her grandchildren may also mourn her—she was grandma, after all. But their children? And their children's children? At most a face in an old holo album—maybe even without a name. Someone to look at and wonder about. Give it another generation and you'll be lucky if the files aren't deleted, the hard copies thrown away to make space for more important things. She's just a nameless face, after all."

Jalan found himself clenching his hands into fists, hard enough so his fingernails drew blood.

_How can she be so inhuman?_ He wondered. The little girl had been excited when they'd managed to rescue her from the entirely unsafe structure she'd hidden in. Jalan had spent the entire time in utter terror wondering what idiot would have created an ancient complex that seemed to be a random mixture of decaying concrete chambers and what appeared to be some form of vacuum tunnel system. There weren't many records from the era but it looked like some sort of security organization. Even now, he remembered the dull sound of collapsing masonry and the blast of stale air that knocked him, Denise and the child (Marla, was it?) on their tailbones just as they escaped from the tunnel mouth. And now this woman was telling him she didn't matter? He'd had enough.

But as Jalan opened his mouth, the woman raised a finger and cut him off.

"I didn't say she didn't matter, Jalan. Being forgotten and _mattering _ aren't exclusive, after all. Which is fortunate, since the former will always happen."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. You're falling into the typical trap people that even good people fall into, I brought you here for a reason, Jalan, and it's time to talk to you about it."

"What reason?"

"I've been keeping track of you... and your worries? They can have a terrible impact. I knew a woman..." Her lips curved, but this time there was a tinge of sadness to her smile. "She asked herself the same questions, only maybe there wasn't anyone there to answer them. She fell."

"And?"

"And eventually she came back, but you can never replace wasted time and she wasted so much of it."

"You're afraid I'd do the same?"

"Maybe, or maybe just not be as happy as you could be," she chuckled, for some reason focusing on Jalan's reddish blond hair. "I have... a vested interest. Come with me and I'll show you some information that can help you."

* * *

TBC.


End file.
